update three

Oh heeeeeeey, from Ethiopia!
I honestly feel like I am in an alternate universe where time moves at a ridiculously fast pace. We leave Mekelle in less than 3 weeks and we are officially freaking out about it. Our routine is still in full swing with not a whole lot more to report; we still visit the girls’ orphanage two mornings a week (and its still the highlight of my life), though this morning we were informed that most of them go home to extended family members during the summer and they leave NEXT WEEK. It was literally the most depressing news I’ve had in a while, so we are enjoying our last few times with them and attempting to make 60 friendship bracelets by next week (I know, we are so ambitious and crafty). We still go to the blind school on Friday mornings and play crazy games and have an amazing time. We have been attempting to make it to the house for the older blind girls in the morning…but mostly we don’t make it because on the way we find the most wonderful street kids to hang out and play with. These kids are so fun, we entertain ourselves for the longest time with a rolled up pair of socks. All our programs at the youth center are going well, too. Teaching English is still one of the hardest things to do (you can’t tell them that the word ‘apple’ starts with the letter A because 1) they don’t know the word apple and 2) there are no apples in Ethiopia). We play Bingo and it is insane, and an organized table tennis tournament causes enough excitement to stop the train of camels passing by outside. We still live off of Ethiopian coffee, and its amazing-ness still hasn’t worn off.
The two Irish guys arrived this past weekend and are working on getting into their routine. They have some pretty thick accents though and at times we have a harder time understanding what they are saying that we do with the Ethiopians. They seem fun though and we are glad to have some other ferengis to hang out with. In other news, we still don’t have power every other day, and for some reason we were out of water for 4 or 5 days (which is really the worst thing that can happen), but we recently got it back and we are hoping that will put life back to normal for a while (well- as normal as life can be here). Other exciting news—as of earlier this week I was officially the first one to get sick; I’ll spare you details, but I assure you it wasn’t fun and I am thankful to be feeling better now. Mindy is still hanging in there though and is set on being the third of the 76 short term-ers to be here and not get sick (we’re all rooting for her and there is talk of a plaque being made in her honor if she makes it).
I have also made it two weeks without having another stick thrown at me! (there was a rock incident, but the guy had TERRIBLE aim, and missed by about 5 feet…amateur). The men aren’t any better, but we are better at ignoring them and avoiding objects (I challenge you to dodgeball when I return).
That’s really all there is to update you on as of now, but if you are feeling ambitious and want to keep reading I am going to share our mini-bus story from a few weeks ago when we went hiking…

We had a day off from work on a Wednesday (some Ethiopian holiday I think its called “fall of the durg” or something), so Mindy, Joel and I, along with an Ethiopian friend named Philemon, decided to check out a waterfall that is popular among the Ethiopians. The place is called Roamanaut (well, that’s what it sounds like to me at least), and it we were promised we wouldn’t be disappointed. The four of us made our way into town to find a minibus that would take us out of town to a place where we could start our hike. Well, we finally found the mini-bus and after Philemon did some bartering for us we agreed to a reasonable price. We had to wait until the van was full though, which took a little longer than expected. People who were already on the bus got impatient waiting for the driver to leave and would get off, leaving us there hoping someone else would get on. Well, almost 2 hours after getting into the car we left. We weren’t envisioning a far journey out of town, but we just kept going…and going…and going. Then we went some more. The road was no longer paved and we were basically driving through villages. We picked up some more people on the way, which was fine because a few had gotten out earlier, but it was still pretty crowded. At this point Mindy and I were wedged into a seat next to an old smelly Ethiopian man, and Joel and Philemon were equally squished in a seat right in front of us. When we stopped to let people on a man got on carrying a burlap sack (no big deal, right? Everyone and their mom in Ethiopia has one…well this one was special). Once we got moving the sack began to move…then we began to hear ‘meow…meow’. Yes…the man had a kitten in his bag. He put it behind him and the cat basically got sat on accidentally by another man holding a bag of raw eggs that was leaking because some had been broken in the process of this ridiculous ride. The man then moved to the front of the van near Joel and Philemon, and at this point the cat was going crazy. Joel finally grabbed the bag and was trying to calm the cat down by petting it through the bag…it was completely ridiculous. We traveled on for maybe another mile and came to a stop in this village where a bunch of people (probably around 30) were gathered in a mob outside of a little building. I was confused why all these people would be gathered in one place, but didn’t realize what they wanted until we stopped right in front of them. Well, it turns out that all of these people wanted to get into the van. Yes. All 30 of them expected to get into an already bursting van with about 15 of us in it. These people were INSANE, they were literally fighting for a spot (you’d think you were witnessing a group of middle-aged women fighting for Hannah Montana tickets for their daughter, or maybe the newest beanie baby or something, not a seat on the bus). Well Philemon decided we were close enough and we decided to walk from there. It was a great hike, super pretty and there was a great water fall (it would have been better if we could have gone in, but thanks to some weird parasites that apparently we can’t handle we decided to let Philemon enjoy the water while we watched). We headed back out and started our journey back and after walking on a long dusty road and hoping that another mini-bus would come back (which it did after walking a couple miles) we made it home and were thoroughly exhausted. Its still one of the craziest things that I have ever experienced, and we still get a good laugh about it. If you know me well, you know how much I enjoy a good round of people watching…this was literally the best I have ever been through. So thanks, Ethiopia, for not running out of ways to entertain me and providing excellent people-watching.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted on any other notable bizarre encounters we happen to have here (and I’m sure there will be more).
You’re an all-star if you’re still with me, but I’ll spare you and more details on our crazy lives here and leave you with this fun fact about Ethiopia: Ethiopia has the largest Camel population in the world. (I know, not the greatest claim to fame, but at least it’s something).